UK General Election (Poll Results in OP)

[Beeblebrox237]

I'll be voting for the Loony Party, of course.

 

[C-ZETA]

I can't in the real thing. I'm too young by about 2 weeks. But since I'm here, the answer to the inevitable question 'But if you could, who?" would be Conservative.

 

[Famine]

On purpose.

Why is that then? Are you happy enough with how things are done that you don't have anything you feel that you should say about it?

 

[Liquid]

Who chose UKIP?

 

[Famine]

Who chose UKIP?

I'm more concerned by the fact that 7 people with short memories have had the great idea that a charmless man who can't eat, speak or walk adeptly should be PM - representing the people of a nuclear superpower and G8 nation on the world stage.

Well, that and the not voting.

 

[rono_thomas]

I'm still undecided so far - don't really like any of the leaders. I'm only able to think that so far these past five years have been relatively uncontroversial, but I'm not happy with casting my vote with the ideal of "If it aint broke don't fix it"...

 

[Famine]

I'm only able to think that so far these past five years have been relatively uncontroversial, but I'm not happy with casting my vote with the ideal of "If it aint broke don't fix it"...

It's a good point and a tough sell - which is why neither Con nor Lib is going there.

When they got in we were about two years from going the full Greece - Blair hadn't expected a third term and was busy leaving a crap hand so that when the Tories got in they could be blamed for everything and Golden Brown would landslide the much sooner next election. But for some reason we voted the grinning psycho back in and they had to go five more years of masking the problems. If Brown hadn't greedily wanted to be unelected PM for as long as possible they might have got away with it.

The fact that we didn't go full Greece is impressive, actually. We lost a point off our credit score, which many regard as a failure, but the deficit - which was running away and always going to get bigger with spending commitments made in the previous government - is being brought under control and we have one of the fastest recovering economies in the world. Yet the plans that have allowed it have been opposed and derided at every turn by the Opposition. I can't even begin to imagine the mess we'd be in with that lot in charge for the last five years - or the next five.

While it seems that a prerequisite for being a Tory MP is being greedy, bent and more than happy to sow one's seed anywhere it can be sown, they don't seem to do it at the expense of actually managing the country. Whereas the champagne socialists in red are all of the above and more - Brown ditched our gold in a fire sale to help out his mates in a US bank while multimillionaire Blair may well be a genuine war criminal. And then there's the matter of Dr David Kelly...


I think that on balance the Tory fiscal nous balanced out by the Libdems' quasi-Libertarian social agenda has done a good job. But I won't vote for either.

 

[rono_thomas]

It's a good point and a tough sell - which is why neither Con nor Lib is going there.

When they got in we were about two years from going the full Greece - Blair hadn't expected a third term and was busy leaving a crap hand so that when the Tories got in they could be blamed for everything and Golden Brown would landslide the much sooner next election. But for some reason we voted the grinning psycho back in and they had to go five more years of masking the problems. If Brown hadn't greedily wanted to be unelected PM for as long as possible they might have got away with it.

The fact that we didn't go full Greece is impressive, actually. We lost a point off our credit score, which many regard as a failure, but the deficit - which was running away and always going to get bigger with spending commitments made in the previous government - is being brought under control and we have one of the fastest recovering economies in the world. Yet the plans that have allowed it have been opposed and derided at every turn by the Opposition. I can't even begin to imagine the mess we'd be in with that lot in charge for the last five years - or the next five.

While it seems that a prerequisite for being a Tory MP is being greedy, bent and more than happy to sow one's seed anywhere it can be sown, they don't seem to do it at the expense of actually managing the country. Whereas the champagne socialists in red are all of the above and more - Brown ditched our gold in a fire sale to help out his mates in a US bank while multimillionaire Blair may well be a genuine war criminal. And then there's the matter of Dr David Kelly...


I think that on balance the Tory fiscal nous balanced out by the Libdems' quasi-Libertarian social agenda has done a good job. But I won't vote for either.

When watching the party leaders on question time the other night that's the general feeling I got from Nick Clegg - He wasn't saying we are going to promise this and this is what is going to make the UK bigger better and stronger. He seemed to be reinforcing the idea that his party has the goal of continuing what has been started, but then the length of office is a long time and ambition, the right ambition, has to be considered also.

I have six days to make my mind up ... it will be my first vote which actually I want to matter to me.

 

[Carbonox]

Who chose UKIP?

Does it specifically concern you that someone chose a party you don't appear to like?

I haven't voted, by the way - I prefer leaving this up to the UK members.

 

[DG_Silva]

I agree with Famine (no real surprise, most end up doing so anyway) that the Tory party have done what could be considered the best for the country. With little other choice but to reduce the deficit left by successive Labour governments' massive overspending plans that increased many times above inflation, caused by a deliberate attempt to breed a generation that relied on state sponsorship to survive, and blatant electioneering by making the country appealing to those who coveted that kind of lifestyle (without any kind of measurable restrictions), and thereby creating a subsection of the population who would have no choice but to vote Labour to continue the lifestyle to which they had been accustomed.

The fact that we have such a prominent Left-leaning broadcaster, bloated by the taxpayer to the point where they don't need to run at a profit, can be so economical with the truth that they call a reduction in benefit a 'tax' only goes to show how much this country was being run by people who have no idea of the value of money, merely the amount. Add into this Red Ed's plan to increase the minimum wage to £8/hr is bloody ludicrous, as all it will do is increase inflation by around 10-15% (fag packet maths, not citable) and cause us to be in the same boat as Greece, Italy, Portugal, etc.

Aside from the idiots they have in UKIP, which is made all the more prominent by the BBC (who do appear to be genuinely afraid of the threat from the party), they do have some fairly sensible ideas and policies on how to run the country for the benefit of those already here. The media portray them as banner-burning, knuckle-dragging boneheads who are one step removed from the BNP, themselves one step removed from ill-tempered, idiotic Neanderthals, who want England (note, not the UK) as white and pure as the driven snow. This is not the case, what they want is the best for a population who were born here, and who already live here. If that means shutting the borders, what's wrong with that? Australia and Canada have a points system for people wanting to emigrate into the country, Australia is certainly not accepting boats of 'asylum seekers', both countries have strict rules where you have to prove financial independence for x number of years before being allowed a permanent visa, why is it so reprehensible to want the same for this country?

Don't forget that the other parties have their share of questionable characters. Do we really have that short a memory that we don't remember the actions of David Mellor, Cyril Smith, Peter Mandleson, Jeffery Archer, Tony Blair, John Profumo, Gordon Brown, Johnathon Aitken, Tessa Jowell, the Falkirk by-election, etc.? There are plenty more who taint the mainstream parties, but none attract the same vitriolic reporting reserved for the UKIP members.

I've got no option but to vote Conservative, and hope for a Tory/UKIP coalition, not that it would make much of a difference to the vote in my constituency, with 54% of the vote going to Labour alone.

 

[Spurgy 777]

I voted Tory in the other thread but I'm tempted to vote UKIP in this one because I'm still undecided. I want to vote for UKIP so we can get a better deal with Europe and be able to get control over immigration, which should help reduce some of the burden on the NHS, housing, etc. But then I feel I need to vote for Tory to stop Labour getting in, a party who refuses to admit they over spent last time they were in government (even hinting that they should have spent more), and who will likely be supported by a party who want to prioritise one part of the country, and to borrow and spend even more than Labour. Right now I'm leaning towards not having Labour is the more important issue.

 

[SVT Cobra GT]

Why is that then? Are you happy enough with how things are done that you don't have anything you feel that you should say about it?

Mainly because I believe there are only 4 parties that have realistically got a chance of winning the election and I don't like any of them. I don't like Cameron, I don't like clegg, I don't like milliband, nor do I think he has a backbone that a PM should have and I don't like farage.
Whilst I could vote for an alternative party and can help swing which of those 4 win, I feel it'd be a wasted vote because I don't want any of those parties in office. And the alternative parties that are there, I don't like them very much either and I don't feel they're worthy of my vote.
That and also because politics has never interested me, I've only taken a bit of notice this time around because everyone -understandably- keeps banging on about it. I've only looked at UKIPs policies a while back because they've been portrayed as a racist party and I wanted to check it out for myself. I found myself agreeing with some of their policies (scrapping parking charges at all hospitals being the main one that I can remember).

Should there ever come a day where I see a political party running in the election and I end up agreeing with their policies and the leader is likeable from my point of view then by all means I will be voting, but now? No.

 

[Carbonox]

I voted Tory in the other thread but I'm tempted to vote UKIP in this one because I'm still undecided. I want to vote for UKIP so we can get a better deal with a Europe and be able to get control over immigration, which should help reduce some of the burden on the NHS, housing, etc. But then I feel I need to vote for Tory to stop Labour getting in, a party who refuses to admit they over spent last time they were in government (even hinting that they should have spent more), and who will likely be supported by a party who want to prioritise one part of the country, and to borrow and spend even more than Labour. Right now I'm leaning towards not having Labour is the more important issue.

Not just that, but voting UKIP is a waste with the current system, which still blatantly favors a 2-party system. Really? Over 600 constituencies with only a single representative going through from each? UKIP's ~15% support doesn't mean jack 🤬 when they're supposed to be the biggest party in multiple areas to even get close to gaining that 15% of the overall seats. 👎

 

[Famine]

Mainly because I believe there are only 4 parties that have realistically got a chance of winning the election and I don't like any of them.

If by "winning" you mean "getting a majority" it's two, as it has been since ever - though I think the reality is that it's none. However, that's not a reason not to vote...

I don't like Cameron, I don't like clegg, I don't like milliband, nor do I think he has a backbone that a PM should have and I don't like farage.

Clegg and Farage are genuinely likeable, though Farage does have the air of something unpleasant lurking behind the outward face. However, it's not about who is likeable, rather who would be an effective PM - and Cameron has kinda proven that he can do the job, while I wouldn't trust Miliband to dress himself, Clegg could dress himself but I doubt he'd manage the big boy pants and I'd only want Farage in charge of organising the victory piss-up.

Whilst I could vote for an alternative party and can help swing which of those 4 win, I feel it'd be a wasted vote because I don't want any of those parties in office. And the alternative parties that are there, I don't like them very much either and I don't feel they're worthy of my vote.

Please never protest vote or vote for a party with whom you don't agree.

Your vote is a mandate. It's an all-or-nothing "I agree with you, now go do it" endorsement of the candidate for whom you vote and, by extension, their party. You can't divide your vote up - it's a wholesale complete agreement with every word of their manifesto.

Feel free to decide your level of personal compromise on how much you agree before you'll vote for a party but bear in mind that if they start doing the things you don't agree with first you can't complain - that's what you supported. This is why my personal level of compromise is zero.

That and also because politics has never interested me, I've only taken a bit of notice this time around because everyone -understandably- keeps banging on about it. I've only looked at UKIPs policies a while back because they've been portrayed as a racist party and I wanted to check it out for myself. I found myself agreeing with some of their policies (scrapping parking charges at all hospitals being the main one that I can remember).

While I agree that "politics" is a bit tedious and uninteresting, you ought to be interested in what's going on at present. Right now is the only time we the people have any direct power over the people who serve us and you should be exercising that power. You might think that you are doing so by not doing so, but you aren't... your vote will be counted even if you don't cast it, but its value will be ignored.

Should there ever come a day where I see a political party running in the election and I end up agreeing with their policies and the leader is likeable from my point of view then by all means I will be voting, but now? No.

It's important to note that casting your vote is always casting your vote in favour of something, while not casting it is never casting it against something.

At present, the entire political system we have right now is broken - for many of the reasons that you state. It will not change until people vote against it and you cannot do that by either voting for a party or by not voting. You have to vote in favour of something - to change the system you have to cast your vote.


Go to the Polling Station, get your ballot slip and immediately fold it in half and post it into the box. Be part of the tiny (0.05%) but growing group who use the only power they have been granted by people who taken all the rest of it for themselves to give a vote of no confidence in it all, not the huge, apathetic plurality who waste the value of their vote by allowing it to be ignored.

 

[MatskiMonk]

On paper UKIP might not appear to be that unreasonable, but I still wouldn't want to join a voting crowd of nationalistic anti-immigration types who'll sit around gobbing off about any foreign looking or sounding person they come across, while themselves raping the system for everything they can get out of it -- mostly afraid that a good number of immigrants will expose them as the lazy privileged system-bleeders that they are. Having said that, I do hold immigrants who expect to come here and take everything they can from the system with the same contempt as our home-grown spongers and leeches, so on paper at least, UKIP's harder line on immigration might go some way to addressing the problem.

4 years ago I might have voted UKIP, because it might have sent a message to those who actually do have control that things need to change, now I'm not so sure. In the 2010 election the Tories beat their next rivals by a ratio of about 2.5:1 in my constituency, and I don't expect that to change too much this time around. Their next rivals were the Lib Dems, which is the reason why I've been paying more attention to my local Tory and Lib Dem candidates this time around, and on the issues of local housing and infrastructure, I think the Lib Dem guy is much closer to understanding and wanting to change the problems we have locally.

.. so I'm very much leaning toward a Lib Dem vote. Which is a shame, because they won't win, it's barely a tactical vote, and it's not a protest vote either... it's about the most irrelevant vote I could make.

 

[Famine]

so I'm very much leaning toward a Lib Dem vote. Which is a shame, because they won't win, it's barely a tactical vote, and it's not a protest vote either... it's about the most irrelevant vote I could make.

Please don't think like this. The FPTP system might make it far more difficult that it needs to be to get your voice heard, but that doesn't mean that your vote is irrelevant unless it joins in with your area's likely majority.

 

[PeterJB]

I'm voting green. The only thing they want that I disagree with is legalisation of some type of drug or prostitution, can't remember which one.

 

[Furinkazen]

At the moment I am not voting. I do not see any of the parties that I can directly trust and agree with. The Conservatives I just don't like full stop, Lib Dems pretty much just sided with Conservatives for a power grab at last election imo, Labour I am sceptical about, and I am not touching UKIP with a barge pole the size of the English channel.

 

[Famine]

At the moment I am not voting. I do not see any of the parties that I can directly trust and agree with. The Conservatives I just don't like full stop, Lib Dems pretty much just sided with Conservatives for a power grab at last election imo, Labour I am sceptical about, and I am not touching UKIP with a barge pole the size of the English channel.

Go to the Polling Station, get your ballot slip and immediately fold it in half and post it into the box. Be part of the tiny (0.05%) but growing group who use the only power they have been granted by people who taken all the rest of it for themselves to give a vote of no confidence in it all, not the huge, apathetic plurality who waste the value of their vote by allowing it to be ignored.

 

[Maccer_42]

I'm voting for "Spoiled Ballot", in the years past I was one of the people who just didn't bother voting at all, but I've been told not voting does nothing and at least a spoiled ballot gets counted.

I've always found it hard to be interested in politics which I'm quite ashamed and embarrassed about, maybe im too pessimistic and deliberately looking for the worst in politics, but every time I watch an interview with a politician I find it near impossible to relate to them, and even if I agree with what they are saying I feel like they are just lying to me to say what I want to hear.

Also I don't fully understand or like how the current system works with voting for party's as a whole, for instance I was watching a interview of Caroline Lucas from when they were making the big fuss about banning Page 3 topless models, the interviewer brings up how in the Green Party manifesto that they want to decriminalise brothels and prostitution etc why are they interested in censoring Page 3 topless models, and she responds eventually that she doesn't agree with the Green Party manifesto on this subject decriminalising all that huh?? So you represent this party but you don't agree with what your party says, how can you represent a party when you don't fully agree with your own party's policies.

Here is the interview, 8:40 to skip to what I just mentioned.


I don't mean to single out the Green Party, it's just the most recent example I've seen of a politician not agreeing with their own manifesto.

I've never put any real thought or research into this but I've always wondered how a system would work where there are no party's at all, and the people vote for individuals to represent places in parliament, for example, Doctors or someone with strong medical knowledge could sign up to represent the countries health minister, they would present their idea's, views, what they plan to do or change and the people could vote for the one they agree with most, with the one with the most votes getting the position and the same or similar for all other positions of parliament.

It would require the people to do a lot more voting than we do now, but you would actually get someone in that position who is at least capable of the doing that job regardless of if you agree with their views.

 

[TenEightyOne]

So you represent this party but you don't agree with what your party says, how can you represent a party when you don't fully agree with your own party's policies.

That's natural and normal, your statement probably applies to 95% of politicians regardless of party. That's what the whip lines are for, another mockery of the electorate.

 

[Lizard]

I'm more concerned by the fact that 7 people with short memories have had the great idea that a charmless man who can't eat, speak or walk adeptly should be PM - representing the people of a nuclear superpower and G8 nation on the world stage.

Well, that and the not voting.

Labour aren't deliberately going to make the country fail though.

I have a feeling that this is like the first time they got elected in 26. Can't trust Labour they have no experience. Well how do you propose they get experience?
This time it is. Labour can't prove they changed. Well how do you propose they prove they changed without giving them a shot?

And don't forget alot of our problems started as a result of the bank corruption in the US. And the Tories want more deregulation after that?

Besides I think Ed is taking a different line to Brown and Blair.

 

[Spurgy 777]

Besides I think Ed is taking a different line to Brown and Blair.

Not by much apparently as he seems reluctant to admit they made a complete mess of things.

 

[Famine]

Labour aren't deliberately going to make the country fail though.

Again.

I have a feeling that this is like the first time they got elected in 26. Can't trust Labour they have no experience. Well how do you propose they get experience?

What? Who said anything about not having experience? They've got loads of experience...

This time it is. Labour can't prove they changed. Well how do you propose they prove they changed without giving them a shot?

What? Who said anything about proving they've changed? And, for that matter, who said anything about them changing?

And don't forget alot of our problems started as a result of the bank corruption in the US. And the Tories want more deregulation after that?

How, exactly, do you propose that any change in UK bank regulation would affect what you believe to be the effects of US bank mediated crises?

This seems like a most bizarre line of thought.

Besides I think Ed is taking a different line to Brown and Blair.

Hardly. They're still the same authoritarian, right-of-centre party they've been since New Labour reared its ugly head.

You remember when Gordon Brown sold off more than half of our gold at record market lows in a series of announced auctions to drive prices down further in order to rescue a US bank heavily leveraged against the price of gold and run by his mates?

His chief advisers were Ed Balls and Ed Miliband.

 

[TenEightyOne]

His chief advisers were Ed Balls and Ed Miliband.

Indeed, David M is Blairite and Ed M is Brownite... the very reason that the unions' parting blow in the leadership election was to give their support to Ed, simultaneously kaiboshing David M's plan and sinking the party that turned its back on them.

 

[vasiliflame]

Who the hell are "Blaunau Gwent"? Are they some dissenters from Plaid Cymru?

its a smally poky town about 25 miles from me i don't understand that either my council estate is bigger. dont get me started on Plaid Cymru no way do that party represent the welsh people i know.

 

[Tom]

Bear in mind also that Labour have only had one PM through election (Tony Blair), both James Callaghan and Gordon Brown came into power through their predecessors resigning.

 

[TRGTspecialist]

Bear in mind also that Labour have only had one PM through election (Tony Blair), both James Callaghan and Gordon Brown came into power through their predecessors resigning.

? Wilson, Attlee and MacDonald were elected PMs too.

 

[Tom]

? Wilson, Attlee and MacDonald were elected PMs too.

Apologies, I forgot to put within the last 40 years! Quite important, that.

 

[Roger the Horse]

I think Labour are terrible, but they're infinitely better than the Tories. I'd want to vote for the Lib Dems if they weren't having some sort of weird love affair with the Tories, honestly. Preferably I'd like to see a Green-Lib Dem coalition (that'll be the day...), in the hope that they'd balance out each other's negatives and steer the country away from the awfulness that 37 years of far right authoritarian politics has left us in.

Usually I'd be inclined towards a spoilt ballot, and it's the choice that I still encourage others to make, but in this case I'm intending to vote Labour. The statement that I want to make, first and foremost, is that I want the Tories out and Labour in.

I can only interpret the Tories actions as being the result of extreme internal pressures for their members to fall in with the party line (either that or a secret conspiracy to help China take over the world ), regardless of whether or not it makes sense, and comments I have heard from civil servants of my acquaintance tend to back this up.

Compared with Labour before them, Tory ministers reportedly seem to show an almost paranoid level of concern with regards to not embarrassing the Prime Minister and his other mates at the front, rather than making uncomfortable decisions for the good of the country.

That and there's the whole thing with the bedroom tax and bizarre benefits sanctions killing some of societies most venerable members...